


if it was meant to be, you'd be right here

by oddeyed



Category: On My Block (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, F/M, Guilt, Survivor Guilt, a drabble, i love you ruben, lots of guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-20 23:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14271423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddeyed/pseuds/oddeyed
Summary: ruby finds something as he's moving back into his old room.





	if it was meant to be, you'd be right here

**Author's Note:**

> here's a thing. i felt like writing on my block fic bc i have a lot of feelings left over from that finale. title based on /that/ song by dej loaf that was playing when /the incident/ happened.

Ruby Martinez set the shoebox of things he had been keeping in the twins’ room down carefully. As he moved back into his room, the only thing on his mind was the fact he wasn’t supposed to have it back this quickly. He couldn’t shake the feeling there was something fundamentally wrong with what he was doing. It had been three weeks since he was shot, since she was shot, and he had just gotten discharged from the hospital. His mother had suggested he stay in Abuelita’s room for now, until he was ready to reclaim Oliv-his old bedroom. Ruby knew that that would probably be best, but after what he had put everyone through these past couple of weeks, there was no way he could have added to their discomfort like that.

Her makeup still littered his dresser, and there were still traces in the air of the perfume Ma and Abuelita had heavily spritzed onto her before heading to church the morning of her quince. Ruby made his way towards the bed, desperately avoiding looking at the pieces of her she had left behind and would never be back to collect. He concentrated on the rise and fall of his chest as he struggled to regain composure. His new propensity towards anxiety attacks had been another consequence of that night. At first, they started off pretty lightly. Slight difficulty breathing and sweating he had attributed to his body being unaccustomed to having a random hole through it. They only started getting this bad when he had lost her. The details from that day were a bit hazy in his mind, given how strung out on painkillers he was, but no number of painkillers could numb the ache of guilt that struck him the moment he found out. Monse and Jamal had been sitting around his room in the hospital, inching around him and acting like he was the most fragile thing in the world. Ruby had known something was wrong the minute they walked in. He wished he could chalk it up to the sensitive situation, but he sensed it was a lot more than that. Something was wrong. Something had happened to Olivia. 

Jamal was the one who ended up breaking it to him, after Monse had been lured out of the room by one of Ruby’s carefully crafted excuses. He walked up to the foot of his bed and awkwardly placed a hand on Ruby’s leg, blurting out how she had died, and when, and where she was now, all in the span of about 2 minutes. But Ruby had stopped processing his words the minute he realized the gravity of what his friend was saying. The room had immediately started spinning. His heart beat quickened at an alarming rate, alerting the nurses with what he assumed were loud beeps that he could no longer hear. Through the flimsy hospital issued gown and socks, he could feel the air around him turn so cold it was suffocating. He couldn’t breathe. He hadn’t done more to protect her and now she was gone as a result of his inability to act quickly. He hadn’t done more.

The constant gunshots that could be heard reverberating throughout the neighborhood at any given time now, definitely did not help his whole anxiety situation. If things had been hot before Latrelle had attempted to shoot Cesar at Olivia’s party, now it was almost as if Satan himself had taken a giant shit on the entire neighborhood. Everyday there would be casualties. The Santos were out for blood. An attempt on the life of one of their own, even if that particular member was a dumb ass punk who had brought this onto himself, was not to be taken lightly. Cesar had been at large, at least to his friends, since the party. All he knew was that Spooky was pissed at him and admittedly, this did scare him a little. Mostly though, Ruby couldn’t help but think his old friend had whatever the universe was planning against him coming. Cesar couldn’t just walk away from this scot free. He had to feel at least a fraction of the pain Ruby was feeling, and Ruby selfishly hoped that time would come soon. Getting up suddenly and kicking under the bed in a fit of rage, he felt something hit his foot. 

“Ouch! Shit.” He muttered, jumping up and down to redistribute the pain. 

He crouched onto the floor after having recovered, grabbing his phone to use for light. Apparently, he had hit the suitcase Olivia had been clutching tightly the day she had arrived. 

***

“You know we’re not going to steal your clothes from you, right?” Ruby said, leading the beautiful stranger into her new room. 

The girl chuckled nervously, looking around at her new digs. It was a lot smaller than her room back in Houston, but she supposed beggars couldn’t be choosers. It’s also not like she would be here for long, anyway. “Before you know it, we’ll be back Mija.” Her parents had said as they were being dragged away from her. They had never broken a promise to her, and there was no reason for them to start breaking them now. They’d all be together again in the blink of an eye. Her quinceañera was soon, and there was no way the universe would let all of their planning go to waste. Yet here were these people, being so incredibly nice to her for no reason. Here was this boy, offering to give up his room for a stay that would only be a couple of days. 

“You know, I really could just bunk with the twins.”

Ruby looked up at her, taking in her taller frame, big sad eyes, and the furrowed brow he would come to recognize as a telltale sign she was thinking about her parents.

“You’re fine. I don’t mean that, I just mean- you’re good. It’s okay. I promise. I would be kind of lonely in here anyway. No worries.”

He was trying so hard to reassure her, to make her feel comfortable in a place that would never really feel like home no matter how hard he tried. As she put her suitcase down and glanced at his eager smile, she couldn’t help but wonder if deep down he knew that. 

***

Ruby grabbed onto the suitcase with one hand now, expecting it to be relatively light but finding otherwise. Confused, he grabbed onto it again, with renewed interest this time, and pulled with both hands to release it from its hiding place. Ruby carefully unzipped the bag, hesitating a bit before glancing inside. His eyes fell on piles upon piles of neatly folded clothes. Apparently, Olivia had never unpacked. After all of those months she had spent living with them, after all of Ruby’s, and Mami’s, and Abuelita’s, and hell, even the twins’ efforts to make her feel at home, she hadn’t ever even fully unpacked. At any given moment she had been ready to take off. Far away from Ruby, his family, and the courtesies being extended to her. Throughout their time together, all she had wanted was to go home, and not home in the sense of Texas, but home in the sense of wherever her parents were. Home in the sense of somewhere she didn’t feel like a burden. Again, Ruby found himself thinking he hadn’t done enough for her. Again, Ruby found himself overcome with the waves of guilt that made him feel as if he were drowning. Gasping for air, he laid down again, on the floor this time. Staring at the ceiling and racking his brain for where else he had gone wrong with the girl he had briefly had the pleasure of loving.


End file.
